


Small Steps

by MirrorMystic



Series: Tailwind [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Dissociation, F/F, Gen, Hospitalization, Pre-Relationship, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10828992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Shiho Suzui is more than people think she is. She's more than a student. She's more than a victim. And she's certainly more than Ann Takamaki's best friend.While the Phantom Thieves were out there trying to change the world, the girl in room six was learning to walk again. This is her story.





	Small Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Day In, Day Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756911) by [OrangeBlossoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrangeBlossoms/pseuds/OrangeBlossoms). 



> For OrangeBlossoms, who wrote Ann and Shiho as they were further down the line- long after they've figured things out more clearly, and long, long after the painful first steps.

~*~  
  
_I keep having this dream._ _  
__  
__I’m sitting across from a girl, at a table lined in velvet. Everything in this place is blue. The sky, the light, the tablecloth, her dress. Everything except her eyes, which are a vivid gold._ _  
__  
__She swipes a gloved hand across the tablecloth, and three cards appear, face down. She reveals them in turn:_ _  
__  
__The Tower. Disaster. Revelation with a cost. I cringe. For me, it might as well be ‘The Rooftop’._ _  
__  
__The Lovers. Choice, and coming of age. Adam and Eve at the gates of Eden._ _  
__  
__Finally, Strength. A woman taming a lion. Strength within, and without._ _  
__  
__“In the wake of disaster, you can still find hope,” she says to me, her voice strong, though she wears a child’s face. “Find yourself. Find your love. Find your strength.”_ _  
__  
__I don’t know if I can. Right here, right now, I feel the furthest I’ve ever felt from ‘strong’._ _  
__  
_**_Thou art I, and I am thou…_** _  
_  
~*~  
  
I wake up, and I don’t feel any less helpless than I did in dreams. My eyelids are heavy. My arms are cold. My legs are numb. The hospital tag is a shackle around my wrist, and the IV line running into my arm might as well be iron chains.  
  
Here, I’m not a student, not a headline, not a volleyball player. Here, I’m not in anybody’s shadow.  
  
And I’m certainly not a shattered heap in the Shujin Academy courtyard.  
  
Here, I’m Shiho Suzui. The girl in room six.  
  
I’m here. I’m awake. I’m alive.  
  
And honestly, I don’t know if I really want to be any of those things.  
  
There are people in my room. I can just barely make them out. They’re just shapes and shadows, blotches of color. My vision wobbles and heaves, like gelatin slapped onto a plate.  
  
A hand closes around mine, warm and steady. I take a deep breath. The nausea passes, and my vision settles into place.  
  
Blonde hair. Sky blue eyes.  
  
“Ann,” I whisper, my voice hoarse from disuse.  
  
“Shiho,” Ann smiles, and my heart skips a beat.  
  
Ann Takamaki. My best friend, and not just from lack of competition. She’s the one bit of warmth in this cold, sterile hospital room. She’s a fire in my hands, warm and alive. And her eyes- there’s something about her eyes. Ann looks through me, into me.  
  
Back at Shujin, the other students barely even noticed I existed. Even here, the doctors only spare me passing glances over the tops of their clipboards.  
  
Ann saw me when I was invisible. That’s why…  
  
I want to get up. I want to jump out of this bed and throw my arms around her neck, and I wouldn’t care at all who saw us. But I can’t. I can barely even lift my arms. It’s all I can do just to turn my neck and meet her eyes.  
  
Ann lifts my hand for me, and brushes my knuckles against her cheek.  
  
“I’m glad you’re awake,” she smiles into my hand. “I have great news.”  
  
There are two other people in my room- shadows on the edge of my vision. One of them is the new boy, the transfer student, his gaze quiet and calculating. The other is Ann’s friend from middle school, the rough-looking boy with bleach-blonde hair.  
  
When Ann lifts my hand and presses it to her cheek, he fidgets and looks away. Maybe he doesn’t want to watch something so personal, so intimate. Maybe he thinks he’s intruding.  
  
I don’t mind. Honestly, I don’t. Because in that moment, with Ann leaning over my bedside, clutching my hand like her life depended on it, I can barely even remember that there’s anyone else in the room. It’s just me. Just Ann. The glow of her smile. The warmth in her hands. And her voice, like light through the clouds.  
  
“We got him, Shiho,” Ann whispers to me. “We finally got him.”  
  
My vision shatters back into shapes and shadows. I feel my heart race, my breathing quicken. I hear the rapid beeping, the curtains thrown back, the nurse rushing in.  
  
I feel the panic rising in my chest, see his face flash across my eyes. I feel the wordless terror surging through my limbs.  
  
But then I feel Ann’s hands squeezing mine, pulling me back from the brink. In the sea of shadows and swimming color, something catches my unfocused eyes.  
  
A butterfly. A white butterfly, out on the windowsill, silently flitting away.  
  
_Thou art I. And I am thou._  
  
~*~  
  
Days go by. I don’t always remember all of them. They’re a jumble in my head. Shapes. Shadows. Splotches of color. White noise in my ears.  
  
Today, an orderly in red scrubs wheels me to the head of the parallel bars and kicks down the locks on my wheelchair. Beside me, a physical therapist in a wool sweater is explaining to me how the parallel bars work for the umpteenth time. I don’t always remember every detail of every day, but I remember this speech. It sounds scripted, textbook. I wonder if they remember that I’ve been in this room, and heard this speech, a dozen times before. I wonder if it’s just procedure, to explain the exercise at the start of every session. I wonder, if I didn’t have this tag around my wrist, if anyone would remember who I was at all.  
  
There’s a TV mounted on the wall in the corner of the room. They’re playing the news. Something about a scandal at a local high school. I grit my teeth and look away.  
  
I’m not fast enough. Someone mentions his name. His face flashes onto the screen and across the insides of my eyelids. I feel the world around me shift and destabilize. I see the growing shadows, hear the static crackling in my ears. I clench my hands into fists.  
  
“Miss Suzui?” A voice is calling me. “Miss Suzui?”  
  
I release the breath I’m holding and remember where I am. I’m upright, between the parallel bars. I’m leaning my weight on my arms, my hands, gripped around the poles so tightly my knuckles are white.  
  
“Miss Suzui?” My physical therapist is asking. “You’re doing great. Remember what I talked about. You’re just making a circle with your hands. Push up, move your hips behind your wrists, and come down. Nice and slow.”  
  
Irritation flashes up my arms and across my eyes. It’s easy for her to say. All she has to do is lecture me. I’m the one doing all the work.  
  
I push down on the bars, lift my feet up for the next step. But I don’t lift them quite high enough. My toes snag on the carpet. I stumble forward, slamming my knees into the floor with a shriek of pain.  
  
The jolt to my legs brings tears to my eyes. My therapist kneels down in front of me, the orderly rushing up from behind.  
  
“Miss Suzui! Hiro, help her up- Miss Suzui, are you alright? Can you stand?”  
  
_What do_ ** _you_** _think?_ I want to snap, but pain screws my jaw shut. The orderly curls his arms up beneath my armpits and hoists me upright. I grab the bars again, my forearms trembling. Sweat slides down my brow, and drips off the tip of my nose. I’m panting, struggling to catch my breath.  
  
I don’t want Ann to see me like this. But I still wish she was here.  
  
“Small steps, Miss Suzui. Nice and easy. We’re almost at the end of the bar, and then we can turn around and get you back to your chair. Does that sound good? Can you do that for me?”  
  
I screw my eyes shut.  
  
I know what she wants me to say. I know what she wants me to do- what the girl with gold eyes and the blue dress wants me to do.  
  
Endure. Persevere. Be strong.  
  
I take another halting step. My arms are shaking. Sweat mingles with pained, frustrated tears.  
  
The voices are telling me to keep moving forward.  
  
Well, screw them.  
  
I can’t do it, alright?  
  
I can’t.  
  
~*~  
  
Some time later, I receive a visitor, though it’s not the one I’m hoping for.  
  
Yuki Mishima is sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed, his back ramrod straight, his hands clasped in his lap. He’s almost painfully polite. I’m just in pain. My arms are still throbbing from yesterday’s physical therapy session, and my legs ache. They’re sensitive, now, and sting to the touch. Even my blanket sliding over them is enough to make them sting. I almost wish they were numb again. I miss when they were just dead weight.  
  
The TV on my wall is playing the news. I would change the channel, but the only alternative seems to be some morbid documentary of what life was like in prison. Between the two, I’ll take the news.  
  
They’re talking about an exhibit that’s just opened up in town. Ichiryusai Madarame, the artist famous for his use of traditional Japanese ink painting. I don’t really have a mind for classical art, and I don’t know if Ann does, either. Still, I would’ve loved the thought of going to an art show with her.  
  
Instead, here I was, shackled to my hospital bed by the tag around my wrist.  
  
Mishima stares down at his hands. He works his jaw, as if about to say something, before stopping and reconsidering it.  
  
He looks so young. Haunted. Lost.  
  
“Suzui-senpai,” he begins at last. “I… wanted to apologize.”  
  
He bows his head. In the harsh white light, his dark hair looks almost blue.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Mishima says, his breath catching in his throat. “I’m sorry that it came to this. I’m sorry for what… what he did to you.”  
  
The world blurs and begins to drop away. I grit my teeth, forcing myself back.  
  
“It’s okay,” I finally manage. “It wasn’t you.”  
  
“Yes it was!” Mishima snaps, jumping to his feet. I’m not ready for the sudden fire in his voice. “It was all of us! It was our parents, the teachers, the whole damn volleyball team! We all knew what was happening, but none of us spoke up! None of us said a damn thing! We just stood back and let it happen! If it wasn’t for Kurusu-”  
  
Mishima catches himself. He swallows hard, and looks away.  
  
Kurusu? Akira Kurusu? I’m not sure what the transfer student had to do with any of this, although Ann seems to have been getting to know him lately.  
  
It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to listen to whatever Mishima needs to get off his chest.  
  
What I’m not ready for, though, is when he gets down on his knees.  
  
No. Mishima, no. Don’t do this to me.  
  
This wasn’t your fault.  
  
This wasn’t any of our faults.  
  
Mishima bows as low as he can go, touching his forehead to the ground, the lowest sign of humility a Japanese man can make. He sits up on the floor, gazing up at me, his eyes brimming with tears.  
  
“It shouldn’t have gone that far,” Mishima said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “We could have stopped it… if I had said something… if any of us had just _said something_ …!”  
  
I take a wavering breath, my cheeks wet with my own tears. Even now, with Mishima prostrating himself on the floor beside me, with the weight of his guilt driving him to his knees at my bedside, I can hear a selfish voice whispering in my ear.  
  
I want to agree with him. I want to blame him. I want to hate him. I want to slap him across the face and scream at him that _yes, it_ ** _was_** _your fault._ ** _You_** _put me in this hospital bed._ ** _You_** _let him do this to me._ I want to throw off my blanket and show him my legs, swollen with blood, only now regaining their feeling after weeks of physical therapy. I want to hate him for being able to play volleyball when I don’t even know when I’ll be able to walk again.  
  
Part of me realizes that he’s not here for me. He’s only here to soothe his own damn guilty conscience.  
  
Well, good. Because another part of me, an awful, selfish, deep down part of me, wants him to feel guilty. I want him to be so overwhelmed with guilt that he climbs up to the school roof and does the same thing I did. I want him to throw himself off that roof, and endure the pain of recovery. I want him to experience, firsthand, what his silence cost me.  
  
I gasp, ashamed, horrified that I could entertain such a gruesome, vengeful thought even for a second.  
  
I take a deep breath. I push that poisonous anger somewhere deep down.  
  
I reach out. I place my hand on Mishima’s head.  
  
And I forgive him.  
  
For his part, Mishima seems just as shocked as I am. He stares up at me through teary eyes, gazing at my hand on his head. Like a pat on the head from an older sister, or a benediction from a saint.  
  
Mishima glances past me. An orderly in red scrubs, Hiro, is standing awkwardly in the doorway, waiting to take me to today’s physical therapy session.  
  
“Um,” Hiro mumbles. “I can come back later.”  
  
“No, no, no, that’s okay,” Mishima stammers. He stands up, wiping his tears away on his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I should be going.”  
  
“Thank you for coming by,” I manage a smile. “Yuki.”  
  
He blinks. Nods.  
  
Hiro helps me into my wheelchair and prepares to wheel me out the door.  
  
“Senpai,” Yuki calls out after me. Hiro and I stop in the hall.  
  
“You’re so strong, Suzui-senpai,” Yuki smiles, though his eyes are red. “I hope I can be like you, someday.”  
  
I don’t feel strong. Quite the opposite. But I know he means every word.  
  
~*~  
  
Another day. Another walk on the bars.  
  
As grateful as I was for any excuse to leave the maddening isolation of room six, physical therapy was never something I really looked forward to. Progress was never as fast you wanted it to be.  
  
But things _were_ inching forward, both in this room and out in the world. Ann went to go see that art exhibit; she said it wasn’t all that special. Then two weeks later it turned out Madarame was a talentless hack who’d been stealing art from his own students.  
  
What a disgrace. If I ever get to take Ann to an art gallery, hopefully it’ll belong to an artist worth their salt.  
  
I grip the bars tight and take another slow step forward. My legs are heavy, and burn with every step. I stop, reaching up and swiping my sleeve across my brow.  
  
“C’mon, Shiho!” Ann shouts, her hands cupped around her mouth despite being only a few feet away. “You’re almost there!”  
  
Oh, Ann. There’s the _other_ reason my heart is racing and my face is red.  
  
My arms are starting to shake. I take another, slow, painful step.  
  
My palms are slick with the sweat from my brow. I adjust my grip for just a moment and my hand slips from the bar. I stumble forward, crying out in alarm. I hear Hiro running up behind me.  
  
But Ann catches me first.  
  
“Miss Suzui-” Hiro calls out.  
  
“She’s okay,” Ann says. She smiles up at me. “I’ve got her.”  
  
Her arm is around my waist. If her arm was any higher she would feel my heart, hammering in my chest. She’s so close. So warm. And her eyes…  
  
Ann lifts me up until I’m fully upright again. And, maybe I’m just imagining things, but she doesn’t seem too eager to pull away.  
  
That’s absolutely fine by me.  
  
For a single, blissful, selfish moment, I wish I could just stay there, curled up against Ann’s shoulder, forever.  
  
But then a voice whispers in my ear. That deep, dark, hateful voice.  
  
_Are you just going to let her carry you for the rest of your life?_  
  
A chill runs up my spine. I shove the treacherous thought away, and inadvertently shove Ann along with it. She stares at me, but her expression is of worry, not indignance. She probably thinks I almost fell again.  
  
My vision is still clear, but I hear the static in the back of my mind, the hateful whisper in my ear, quickening my temper, putting me on edge. I felt the same thing a few weeks back, when Mishima got down on his knees and laid his guilt at my feet.  
  
“Shiho,” Ann looks me over. “Are you alright?”  
  
I take a breath, and another step forward.  
  
“I’m okay,” I nod. “I can do this.”  
  
And as I say that, not quite believing it, the voice in my head echoes:  
  
_I can do this without you._  
  
Just what the hell is happening to me?  
  
~*~  
  
Days go by, and I don’t hear anything from the voice. I don’t abruptly feel like snapping at anybody or biting their heads off, and I certainly don’t have any sudden desires for people to throw themselves off buildings.  
  
I looked it up. There are things called ‘intrusive thoughts’ that are, apparently, perfectly normal. Healthy, even.  
  
I’m not convinced. The sudden anger I felt towards Mishima, the sudden resentment towards Ann… it didn’t feel that healthy. Not at all.  
  
Feeling slightly more healthy were my legs. Physical therapy was progressing to the point where I could just about limp to the bathroom in my hospital room and make it back to my bed _without_ wanting to kill myself.  
  
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed after one of these thrilling expeditions, massaging my burning calves. A talk show is playing on TV. They’re interviewing some detective who’s also a kid in high school, as implausible as that sounds. Why anyone would want to pursue criminals on top of keeping up with schoolwork is beyond me; but then, I am- or was- a student athlete, so maybe I’m not one to talk.  
  
There’s a knock on my doorpost. “Visitor,” Hiro announces, poking his head in the door. He ducks out, and a moment later, someone else pops in- Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann’s friend from middle school.  
  
“Hey,” he says, lingering in the doorway, a shopping bag in his hand. “Ann says she’s sorry she couldn’t make it today. Her agency called her in at the last second and she went runnin’ off to a photo shoot. But, uh, she wanted me to give you this.”  
  
He pulls a magazine out of the bag and lays it flat on my lap. Ann’s right there on the cover, with a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a white dress caught in the summer breeze. Pride swells in my chest, and before I know it, I’m flipping through the catalog, grinning from ear to ear.  
  
“Hot off the presses,” Sakamoto says, looking about as proud as I feel. “Just in time for the summer.”  
  
I pause at a two-page spread of Ann standing on the beach, gazing out at the sea, her hair shining gold as it catches the sun. She’s…  
  
“...Amazing,” I breathe out. “God, just look at her.”  
  
“She’s a hell of a girl, huh?” He beams.  
  
“My best friend is a model…” I sigh, dreamily.  
  
“Hell, your best friend’s a _covergirl_ ,” Sakamoto chimes in.  
  
“Thank you for this,” I smile up at him. I gesture to the chair beside my bed. “Would you like to sit down?”  
  
He hesitates, looking down at his clothes, as if worried he’s not dressed for the occasion. And, well, he’s not- he’s still in his Shujin uniform, for one thing, and it’s hardly to code, with the pants rolled up and a red T-shirt instead of the white polo. I don’t know what he’s so worried about. It’s not like my hospital gown and therapeutic compression socks are going to be starting any trends. And compared to Ann…  
  
I suppose he sees the look I’m giving him, because he shrugs and plops down into a chair soon after.  
  
“I'm sorry we've never really talked before. How long have you known Ann?” I ask. “You must be close, if you call each other by your first names.”  
  
“Not _that_ close,” Sakamoto shrugs. “We were friends in middle school, but that was… I don’t know.”  
  
“Proximity?’  
  
“Yeah. Calling her ‘Ann’ is a recent thing. We’ve been spending more time together, lately.”  
  
“I’ve heard,” I grin. “She says you’re becoming ‘almost tolerable’.”  
  
“I’ll give her something to tolerate,” he rolls his eyes.  
  
For an odd moment, the jocular grin fades from his face, and Sakamoto looks up at me, completely earnest.  
  
“Hey. Realtalk?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I mean, like, honestly, sincerely. Looking at you two- you and Ann, I mean- you two are kind of… amazing.”  
  
I scoff. It’s a reflex. “I’m nothing special.”  
  
“Come on,” he presses. “Y’know, some time back, I broke my leg. I had to go through physical therapy, too. That shit hurt like hell. But look at you. You’ve got it twice as bad, but you’re doing it. You’re powering through it. And look at Ann. All these photo shoots, trying to jumpstart her career even while she’s still in high school- she’s doing it for you. She’s doing all this for you. I think she’s real lucky to have you as a friend.”  
  
“Are you sure you don’t mean that in reverse?”  
  
“Hey, I’m being serious here,” Sakamoto says. “When she found out about-”  
  
Oh no.  
  
“-what-”  
  
Don’t say it.  
  
“-that bastard-”  
  
Don’t-  
  
“-did to you...”  
  
Shapes. Colors. The world starts sliding, slipping away. I grit my teeth and screw my eyes shut. I pinch the skin of my wrist, let the pain act as an anchor, a focus.  
  
“She was furious,” Sakamoto says. His words swim in the air around me. “Me and Kurusu, we had our own reasons, but Ann went after him because of you. You should’ve seen how driven she was. She- uh- hey… you okay…?”  
  
I force the world steady. By the time I’m able to pull myself back, Sakamoto’s on his feet, and I’m gasping for breath.  
  
“Hey,” he asks, urgent. “Should I call a nurse, or something…?”  
  
“I’m fine,” I lie, grinding a knuckle into my temple to will the dizziness away. “What were you saying?”  
  
“I was talking about how, when we went after him-”  
  
“You’re not making sense,” I mutter. “What did you _do_?”  
  
Sakamoto stares at me, caught in the headlights. I don’t have time to worry about his secrets, and how well or not he keeps them. I’m more concerned with keeping my vision focused and my breathing steady.  
  
“...Never mind,” he groans. “Look. The point is, I think Ann’s lucky to have someone she cares about so strongly. You should’ve seen how angry she got. If looks could kill… shit, she would’ve burned him alive.”  
  
“Maybe she should have,” I murmur, darkly.  
  
Sakamoto looks at the floor, searching for a response, coming up empty. Defeated, he scoops his school bag up and slings it over his shoulder.  
  
“It’s gettin’ late,” he says, edging around my bed. “I oughta go. I’m sorry if I said somethin’ stupid.”  
  
“It’s okay.” I shrug. “Good talk.”  
  
“Yeah,” he smiles. He hesitates in my doorway. “...Y’know… for what it’s worth, I’m glad Ann has someone like you. No matter what happens, I hope she’ll always have her best friend.”  
  
Sakamoto means well. I know he does. But something about that choice of words doesn’t sit well with me at all.  
  
He waves goodbye and heads down the hall, a telltale limp in his leg. I watch him leave, and feel that whisper, deep down- a tightening in my chest, and a crackle of static in my ear.  
  
~*~  
  
Before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye.  
  
When the announcement came, my room was a blur of activity. It was hours and hours of medical staff barging into my room and making arrangements with my parents, setting me up with an outpatient program, talking about me like I wasn’t even there.  
  
But today’s the day, and suddenly, it’s quiet again- the calm before the storm, or perhaps, the stillness just after.  
  
One signature, and I get to walk- well, limp- out of here for good. My parents are coming to pick me up, soon. But Ann is already here. It’s a habit of hers, being here for me when my parents aren’t.  
  
I can’t wait to get out of here. There are too many things I miss- real food, for one. My clothes, for another. But there’s something I’ll miss, more than anything else.  
  
I just don’t know how to tell her.  
  
Ann is standing at the window. She’s an angel, haloed with sunlight. Somehow, even on the cusp of typhoon season, the day today is almost painfully bright.  
  
“Ann?” I eke out.  
  
She turns to me, her hair catching the light. I suck in a breath.  
  
“Ann, there’s something I need to say. Something I should have said a long time ago.”  
  
I stand up, unsteady on my feet. Ann’s already making her way towards my bed, and some part of me, some hidden, stubborn part of me, is determined to meet her halfway.  
  
I don’t. Not even close. I take two halting steps before I all-but fall into her arms.  
  
I brace myself on her hands- solid, secure. She’s more steady than the parallel bars ever were.  
  
Her eyes are so bright. Bright enough to almost melt my resolve. Brighter than the improbably cloudless day outside. Such a beautiful sky blue…  
  
“Ann, I-”  
  
I only get two words out before anxiety clamps my jaw shut. I have to tell her. My parents are arriving soon. It’s now or never.  
  
Say it. Say it!  
  
“Ann… I…”  
  
I can’t. She’s so close, and my head is spinning. I can’t, I-  
  
Just say it!  
  
I can’t! I-  
  
“Shiho?” Ann asks. Maybe it’s the light, but I swear she’s blushing.  
  
Damn it! Just-  
  
“I’m transferring schools.”  
  
Ann blinks. “What?”  
  
What?  
  
“My parents don’t want me going back to Shujin,” I explain tonelessly, my mouth on auto-pilot. “My parents found some other school, out in the countryside. Maybe they thought I could use the peace and quiet. But that means, even though I’m leaving the hospital today, I… I’m not coming back.”  
  
Ann takes a deep breath. Lets it out slow. “...Oh. I guess… yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.”  
  
“I’ll call,” I stammer, my cheeks suddenly wet. “I’ll come visit. There has to be a train-”  
  
“I get it,” Ann smiles. “Parents. What can you do, huh?”  
  
“You don’t understand,” I say. I’m not smiling. “I want this, too.”  
  
Ann blinks, taken aback. “You do…?”  
  
“I need to get away. From him, from Shujin…”  
  
_From you._  
  
“I can’t go back,” I continue. “How could I? To them, I’ll always be Shiho Suzui, the girl on the volleyball team. Shiho Suzui, the girl who jumped off the roof. Shiho Suzui, the girl who got ra-”  
  
“Don’t!” Ann hisses.  
  
I squeeze Ann’s hands, and the world doesn’t dissolve. I take a shuddering breath.  
  
“...Shujin’s full of people who read a headline and think they know me,” I sigh. “Maybe it’ll be good to go somewhere where nobody knows me at all. Maybe it’ll be good to be invisible again.”  
  
Ann sighs. She squeezes my hands, as if to remind herself I’m still there and not already gone.  
  
“...I don’t want you to go,” she murmurs.  
  
_Because you want me all to yourself?_ The bitter voice whispers in my ear, but I push it away, bury it deep.  
  
“I need to go,” I whisper, as much for myself as for her. “I want to be more than K- h- his victim. I want to be more than Shujin’s almost-suicide. I want to be more than your best friend.”  
  
I wince. Poor choice of words.  
  
“So… this is goodbye, then?” Ann whispers, dabbing at her eyes.  
  
“Don’t say it like that,” I murmur. “And don’t cry. If you cry, I’m gonna…”  
  
Who am I kidding? I’m already crying. Ann is, too. And before I know it, she’s pulled me close, and now I’m getting tears all over her Shujin summer polo.  
  
I wrap my arms around her waist. The world shatters around me- shapes, colors, shadows. Ann is a light, a star in my hands the color of her hair. She’s so close. I can feel her- I can feel the streak of tears against my neck, feel the hitch in her chest, feel her fingers in my hair.  
  
“I’ll miss you,” she says, her words drifting in the air. “I’m going to miss seeing you at school.”  
  
“You were the only one who did,” I whisper into her throat. “You saw me, when I was invisible.”  
  
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, framed by the setting sun, holding each other like our lives depended on it. And, for me at least, it _did_. That’s why I was doing this, right? That’s why I was transferring schools?  
  
Vaguely, I become aware of people behind us. I sigh. It’s time to go.  
  
I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to let go. I just want to stay in that moment forever; holding Ann, and her holding me.  
  
But I have to let go. I have to.  
  
I give Ann’s hands one last squeeze before I turn away- from her, and the light streaming in my window. I shuffle towards my parents, my doctor. They beam at me with each shaky step. I bask in their pride, smiling through my tears.  
  
I wonder if this is what it feels like, to stand on my own two feet.  
  
Is it supposed to be this frightening?  
  
Is it supposed to hurt this much?  
  
~*~  
  
_Ever since I left the hospital, I keep having the same dream._ _  
__  
__I’m sitting on a subway platform, dangling my legs off the edge. Everywhere I look, there’s an ominous red light._ _  
__  
__It’s stifling down here. Hot. Musty. The air is thick, with smoke and other things- anger, fear, frustration. The urge to throw myself onto the tracks as soon as I hear the train coming. The poisonous whisper in my heart. The lies I tell myself. The things I cannot say._ _  
__  
__I promise myself that I’ll tell her. Not now. Someday._ _  
__  
__As soon as I get out of here._ _  
__  
__I have to get out._ _  
__  
__I’m not alone down here. There’s a girl here with me. She’s not the fortuneteller from before, the girl in blue with butterflies in her hair._ _  
__  
__This girl looks just like me. But her eyes are a vivid gold._ _  
__  
_**_Thou art I. And I am thou._** _  
_  
~*~

**Author's Note:**

> The Lovers, sixth of the Major Arcana, doesn't just represent relationships. It represents choices, coming of age, and learning to step outside your comfort zone. I think that Arcana fits Shiho just as well as it fits Ann. 
> 
> I imagine this story taking place prior to Ann's Confidant Rank 9- where Shiho confesses to Ann, and admits that the voice in her head that told her to jump isn't there anymore. 
> 
> What we don't see, however, is the manifestation of her Shadow, and someone having to go down into Mementos to deal with it... but that's a story for another day. Thanks for reading!


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